MISCELLANEA. 
659 
be of use to those who have hitherto found a difficulty in procuring 
an abundant supply of distilled water for the purposes of chemical 
research. 
Pharmaceutical Journal for August 1850. 
Mitcham ; its Physic Gardeners and Medicinal Plants. 
More than 2000 years ago the physicians of Greece were 
supplied with herbs, of which their materia medica chiefly con- 
sisted, by a class of persons called pi^orofioi (rhizotomi or root- 
cutters), who occupied themselves with the collection and sale of 
roots and herbs. They are mentioned by Theophrastus in con- 
nexion with the (pctpixciHOTuhca ( pharmacopolce or pharmacopolists). 
Most of them were illiterate and superstitious, and ascribed magical 
virtues to the roots and herbs which they collected. 
Among the Romans these cullers of simples were termed her - 
harii ( herharists ), and, if we are to believe Pliny, they were a sad 
set of knaves. 
At the present day, and in our own country, the ^i^oTOfJboi of the 
Greeks and the herbarii of the Romans are represented by a class 
of persons called simplers, who go about the country collecting 
those medicinal herbs which grow wild, -and the demand for which 
is insufficient to induce the dealers to cultivate them. The plants 
thus collected are sold chiefly to the herbalists, by whom the 
profession and public are supplied. 
But those medicinal plants for which there is a sufficient de- 
mand, and which can be grown in this country, are cultivated in 
physic gardens or physic grounds, by persons called physic gar- 
deners or herb growers. 
Although the cultivation of medicinal plants is carried on in 
various parts of JCngland, yet more land is employed in this way 
in Surrey than in any other county ; and by far the greatest part 
of our physic grounds lie in the parish of Mitcham and its neigh- 
bourhood, about nine miles from London. The soil of this place is 
a rich hlack mould. 
The cultivation of physical plants at Mitcham commenced about 
a century ago. Lysons, who wrote in 1796, says that forty years 
before his time there were only a few acres employed in the cul- 
tivation of medicinal herbs in this parish ; whereas, at the time he 
wrote, about 250 acres (of which 100 acres were devoted to the 
cultivation of peppermint) were occupied by physic gardeners. 
At the present time more than 800 acres are devoted to the 
cultivation of medicinal herbs, at Mitcham, Merton, and Carshalton. 
About 1768 or 1769, Mr. Potter began the cultivation of physic 
plants at Mitcham. He was succeeded by his relative, Mr. James 
